The 24th meeting of the LOHMANN Klub Russia took place in wandersleben in Thuringia from March 17 till March 20. wandersleben is a little village between erfurt and Gotha. why we chose wandersleben, a little village nearly 500 km away from Cuxhaven? To answer this question we have to go back to the foundation of LOHMANN Klub Russia.

Establishing a platform for meetings, training, exchange of experiences and to union poultry plants, identical to ‘Gold ei’ in wandersleben – that was the basic idea behind the LOHMANN Klub, devised by Mr. Zimmerer.

The problem of determining egg prices is as large in Germany as in Russia or in the Netherlands. Showing that this is nevertheless possible was the most important reason to organise this meeting. As the name of the Zimmerer family is for most of the experts not only linked to egg production but also with the cage manufacturer salmet, we started our meeting with a visit to the cage production plant in Ittlingen.

Careful inspections

“The man who has his own poultry knows that it is necessary to attain high productivity and to keep it high for a long period of time.” With these words the director of salmet, Norbert Brehters, welcomed the group. He talked about the founder and owner of the egg producing family company, Mr. Philipp Zimmerer.

These words have reflected in his life and his strategy throughout his professional career. Only inspected systems which were tested on the company’s own plant found their way to the customer. This was noticed by the visitors throughout the visit and the discussions – all systems are produced in Germany and are only shipped after careful inspection. Not only the latest developments of cage facilities but also the composting plant aroused very high interest. The problem of manure removal is playing a more and more important role in Russia. The new laws (under preparation in Russia) raise more questions and entail new tasks.

Gold Ei

Getting to know ‘Gold ei’ took place one day later – at first directly on the farm. Mr. Gregor Zimmerer, director and son of the founder, welcomed the group in front of the ‘flagship’ of the company: a house with more than 110,000 LOHMANN layers in salmet percheries, with open space. He briefly explained the history of the company and also shared the philosophy behind the plant system. Afterwards, production manager Mr. Dietrich Blechschmiedt clearly explained the management- and production cycle on the rearing and production farm. Some information surprised nearly all of the visitors: as in all other parts of Germany, a change from brown to white laying hens is taking place. The reason is the excellent feed conversion and so the LsL is coming more and more into play. According to Mr. Blechschmidt one of the most important guarantees for success is the strict division of production- and rearing areas (in this case 80 km inbetween) and the working system in different areas, for instance totally completed or totally empty.

Only after the farm visit the group could become familiar with the ‘Gold ei’ system. The single egg producer does not have the power or the chance to push through his own prices which is identical compared to Russia. However, more producers together will not only offer 500,000 eggs per day but several million. These quantities are more interesting for the wholesale business. every member of the association delivers eggs to their ‘own’ sales organisation which makes also the accounting much easier. we hope that this will achieve positive results in the future.

New channels

The last, but this time most important part of the meeting, was the internal consultan


Chick Deliveries to CIS countries (without Ukraine) during the years 03/04 until 14/15

cy of the Klub members which has been impatiently awaited. It is not customary that both managing directors of LOHMANN TIERZUCHT to take part. All participants felt that something important was going to happen.

“The continuously increasing parent stock shipments to Russia and to all other CIs countries, (see graph 1) the permanently changing political situation and the even more dangerous epizootic situation in the world require new decisions. ”with these words Prof. Preisinger started his speech. Additionally, there is the permanently changing economic situation in the countries or regions, the changing euro rate which highly depends on the political situation. These continuous modifications have a negative influence on our cooperation. we cannot reduce the risk only by the increasing productivity of our breed. Therefore, we have to find and use other channels.

One of these channels is the chick truck where chicks can eat and drink, enabling a transport of 6 to 7 days. Time will tell whether this would be possible for shipments to the Urals or siberia. we are already set for this challenge. Another possibility is the improved genetic thanks to the marker-assisted selection. This leads to better progress for sectors where the traditional selection could not make much progress.

New way of working

Javier Ramirez emphasized a very new way of working of LOHMANN TIERZUCHT. Due to the present geopolitical situation, the ew group made the best decision: to build its own grandparent stock farm in Russia. In the near future we can produce our hatching eggs and hatch our parent stock chicks close to our customers. This would reduce both the enormous transport costs and the transport time which would further increase chick quality. After this information a lively discussion started – the most important question was, of course: “where?”. The managing directors explained that a rough direction already is selected – Aviagen has its own hatchery in the Tula region (200 km south of Moscow) – but the search and the discussion continue.

Election

The most important factor during the discussion was the best quality, but we may not lose sight of production costs. As we have to sell the chicks here, the price has to be competitive. At the end of the internal part of the event, only the Klub members were invited. The president of the Klub had to be elected. Valeriy Pavlovich Goryachev, director of the fourth largest egg producing plant in Russia, asked the members to release him from his duty due to the increasing work load. The proposal to elect Mr. sergey Vladimirovich Timofeev, director of Pyshminskaya Pticefabrica (plant in Tyumen with a yearly production of 300 million eggs) was approved unanimously.

Mr. Timofeev accepted the election with slight delays and concerns. But then he immediately made his first proposal. In order to honor the founder and initiator of the LOHMANN Klub Russia – Prof. winfried Bonitz – he proposed to add his name to the name of the Klub. This was widely applauded with much enthusiasm. From now on the full name of the Klub is ‘International LOHMANN Klub Russia awarded to Prof. winfried Bonitz’.
The last item (but not less important) on the program was of course culture and history – a visit of weimar, the city of Goethe and schiller, and Dresden.

Norbert Mischke